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IN THE FOOTSTEPS 



OF 



COLUMBUS 



® 



BY 



ANNIE J. CANNON. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS 



OF 



. COLUMBUS. . . 



BY 

ANNIE J. CANNON. 



BOSTON. 

1893. 



Copyrighted, 1893. 
ANNIE J CANNON. 

Oifl 

Wm. J. KJiees. 
10 fe^90^ 



^0 /lbs travelling Companion 

from trbc Ibub, 

Who, though a stranger when we sailed away from New York, soon captured me by her taking 

ways, 
And developed a great fondness for old Ocean, 
Who never failed to catch a train, being capable of lightning speed, 
Who, though I seldom timed her, could also take things slowly — 
My interpreter, enabling me to obtain the views of all nations. 
My scribe, enrolling a picturesque and accurate account of our journey — 
A creature of light and sunshine. 
Ever a most attractive representative of America, 
Who, though the object of many an ardently pressed suit, 
Gave always a clear negative in reply, 

MY KAMARET, 

This little book is affectionately dedicated in the hope that it may be of service 

in proclaiming her good qualities throughout the length and breadth of 

Columbia ! 




COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE. 



Hn ^be 3foot0tep0 of Columbus. 

Another custom house ! 

I had taken my Kamaret into many lands, and trembled on every frontier 
lest the six spools of films should be exposed to light. I had twisted the one 
phrase, camera photographic, by means of accents and terminations, into nearly 
all the languages of Europe. Accustomed, therefore, to pantomime rather than 
speech, when the representative of Uncle Sam on the Red Star pier at Jersey 
City gazed curiously at my box, I merely turned back the cover of the case, 
and displayed " The Blair Camera Co., Manufacturers, Boston, Mass., U. S. A," 

"When do you expect to go again?" was almost the first question I 
heard. 

" Immediately," I replied. 

Not with spreading sail, or the puffing of a mighty engine, not over the 
rushing waters of the great deep. My second transatlantic journey was 
taken in the familiar household pantry, in former days given over to ginger 
cakes and mince-meat pies, but now, in the evolution of science, completely 
usurped by mysterious-looking bottles, a large, starch-box lantern with its 



8 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 

Polyphemus-eye of ruby fabric, and all the bundles of touch-nots, handle-nots, 
that make up an amateur's dark-room. 

It was the 21st of October — Columbus Day — when I gave a negative to 
callers, locked the door of the larder and started again through that country 
which, if it did not give birth to the discoverer of America, resounded for 
many years to his footsteps, and, at last, gave him the means of starting on 
that most wondrous voyage. 

O Espaiia, home of the Cid, of Isabella the Catholic, of Columbus, thou 
hast charms no other land possesses ! Thy Castilian valleys weave poetry into 
the plainest soul. Thy Andalusian mountains breathe romance and song into 
the very spirit. I am not an artist, but thy splendid sun has painted on my 
Blair films scenes more truthful than brush or pencil could portray, I am not 
a poet, but my Kamaret photographs sing thy praise better than song or sonnet- 

From the moment of entering Spain, the Kamaret seemed to be a pass- 
port to the good-will and kindly interest of the people. The first custom-house 
ofiRcer, to be sure, examined it doubtfully. I had been told that a camera in 
Spain would give me endless trouble. 

" Camera fotographica," I murmured. 

My Spanish may have been at fault, for I know not even now what they 
call them, but it answered the purpose. The gallant officer smiled rather 
apologetically and chalked the box. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 9 

Subjects for snap-shots now presented themselves on every side, and, 
though I had not thought of taking many interiors, the temptation to try one 
came early in the journey. 

From Burgos we made an excursion to the ancient convent, Miraflores, 
where Isabella the Catholic erected magnificent marble tombs over the remains 
of her parents. We were admitted by a monk in a picturesque, white serge 
costume ; and, in the chapel, a large robust brother was sweeping up the floor. 
In response to a question we addressed him, he replied that if we were strangers 
he could talk with us. We said, indeed we were, for we had come from 
America. At the word America, he became interested and uncovered the high 
altar adorned, as he said, with the first gold brought into Spain from the New 
World. It is, perhaps, the most elaborate and ornate retable on the Peninsula, 
covered with figures of saints and apostles, kings and queens, a mass of gold 
and carvings. 

A determination to bring home a picture of that altar seized me. But I 
had no tripod, and it was necessary to rest the Kamaret on something to make 
a time-exposure. There was absolutely nothing in the chapel except the 
priests' stalls. Should I venture? At worst, I could but spoil a film. So, 
while the monk conversed in a whisper on the other side of the chapel with my 
friend, I placed the Kamaret on the arm of a priest's chair, arranged the 
shutter, and made a three minutes' exposure. 



lO 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 



Can you not imagine 
my feelings of joy when, 
on the second journey, in 
the Uttle dark closet, I 
saw once more the old 
Miraflores and the altar 
glowing with our own Amer- 
ican gold? 

"Plaza del Pacifico" is 
the little sign hang- 
ing in front of our 
hotel at Sevilla; 
at least, so says 
the Kamaret, and 
she cannot tell a 
lie. 

Our hotels and 
our guides, if We 

liked them, were always honored by the Kamaret's attentions. These little 
things that go so far to make up the personal element of a journey are often 





FAIR SEVILLE CITY." 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 



13 



more prized than pictures of towers and cathedrals that can be bought in any 
shop. So it is that I look with pleasure again and again upon our comfortable 
home in the Place of Peace, and upon the honest face of our Sevillian guide, 
Alphonse. By no one, indeed, were the Kamaret's attentions more fully re- 
ciprocated than by Alphonse, who completely upset all my good resolutions 
that no one should ever carry my camera. But, fellow-camerists, I found few 
as gallant and trustworthy as Alphonse, and rejoiced that it was not necessary 
with a Kamaret, so light, so compact, so handy, that I carried it many miles 
without fatigue over hill and dale, and even climbed rugged Vesuvius with it 
in hand. 

In the great Cathedral of Sevilla is the tomb of Fernando, son and biog- 
rapher of Columbus. It is marked by a simple slab in the floor, bearing rude 
cuts of the caravels in which Columbus sailed, and the motto which was after- 
wards incorporated in the arms of the family, — 

" To Castile and Leon 
Columbus gave a new world." 

From the Cathedral, let us pass through the Court of Oranges to the 
Giralda, where for centuries the muezzin's cry summoned the faithful to prayer, 
the world's tower of grace and beauty. From the top of the Giralda, I took a 
random shot with my Kamaret focused at 100. Over the flying buttresses and 



14 

pinnacles of the mam- 
houses, the bull-ring in 
and masts of steamers 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS 

1 




moth cathedral lay the fair city, a mass of white 
close proximity, and farther away, bridges 
"where Guadalquivir's waters flow." 

Descending the Giralda, we walked 
through a doorway containing a 
time-worn image of the Virgin, be- 
fore which, Alphonse said, Colum- 
bus on his way to Palos prostrated 
himself with a prayer for his mighty 
undertaking; we stepped under a 
chain on which a curious lad seated 
himself to watch me as I caught, 
with a click of the button, the path 
trodden on such a momentous oc- 
casion by the discoverer of my own 
country ; we passed into a Moorish 
palace ! What words can convey 
any idea of the tracery of these 
walls, of the gardens, and baths, and 
balconies? But the score of pictures 




MOORISH GARDEN OF THE ALCAZAR. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 17 

I took in that Alcazar are an ever-present reminder of its beauties and 
its delights. 

" It was at Cordova, 
In the Cathedral garden. Thou wast sitting 
Under the orange-trees, beside a fountain." 

A beautiful, high-born, Spanish maiden threatened with a hated alliance, 
had fled for comfort to the open door of the sanctuary. Stopping for a few 
moments to rest under the fragrant oranges, her tearful eyes beneath the lace 
mantilla, her sad figure, robed in black, stood out in strange contrast to the 
brilliant scene around. 

A cavalier, entering by the tower gate on his way to the Cathedral to pray, 
one who was ever attracted towards the sorrowful, approached, discovering the 
cause of her sorrow, finding a near kinswoman of his most influential C6rdovan 
friend, winning a believing soul and loving companion. 

Such is the legend of the first acquaintance of Christopher Columbus and 
Beatrice Enriquez, the mother of his son Fernando. 

I found no weeping Spanish ladies in this patio, but I did see a group of 
people around the Moorish fountain, as pleasant of feature as Dons and 
Duennas. A tourist is not as common in Spain as in other European countries. 



i8 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 




and the good-natured 
people approached, 
probably as much out of 
curiosity to see me, a 
girl with a hat on and 
umbrella raised, as to 
see the queer-looking 
box I carried. And I 
was equally curious to 
look upon them, es- 
pecially as they were 
reflected in the faithful 
finder of my Kamaret. 
I have seen the people 
of Belgium and France, 
of Italy and Germany, 
but never have I met 
such pleasant faces and 
kindly smiles as among 
these Spaniards. 




INTERIOR OF THE MOSQUE OF CORDOVA. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 21 

O, Mosque of C6rdova ! I love you not more for your thousand alabaster 
columns, for your mosaics and carvings, for your marbles and lanterns, than 
for the water-carriers who gave such a welcome that day to the stranger within 
your gates. 

The Cathedral is the only well-preserved remains of a Mohammedan 
house of prayer in Spain, the sole remnant of the three thousand mosques of 
Moorish C6rdova. I wandered long through its aisles and chapels before I 
attempted a picture, doubting the possibility of securing one because of the 
numerous workmen and worshippers walking around. 

At last, I opened the shutter for a time-exposure. Footsteps immediately 
resounded in every direction while I stood, watch in hand, thinking minutes 
never were so long as in the Mosque of C6rdova at this particular hour. But 
half the time I had expected to give it was over, when the steady coming of a 
young Spaniard to see my apparatus caused me to pull up the button and close 
the shutter. Now I am filled with gratitude to the unknown lad whose natural 
curiosity saved my picture from a ruinous over-exposure. Indeed, I never saw 
a negative develop more evenly and harmoniously than this, timed two minutes 
and a half in the uncertain light of an immense Cathedral. 

The Mecca of all Spanish tourists is the Alhambra, and there is no more 
fascinating place in the world for an amateur photographer. We wandered. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 



undisturbed, my Kamaret and I, through this enchanted palace, gathering spoils 
of its pillars, which the Arab poet sung of as " brought from Eden " ; its 
garden, "the garden of Paradise"; its walls, "of hewn jewels"; its courts 
of "petrified flowers," and its ceilings of "transparent crystal." 

As we stood on the Torre de la Vela, with the Vermilion Towers before us 
and the magnificent Vega at our feet, we could not but give a sigh to the 
fainthearted Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings. But 
a greater hero of the Alhambra to us than Boabdil is 
Columbus. I like to think that the old, crumbling palace 
has some association not only with a past empire and 
a lost race, but with this progressive age and my own 
country. For no place is more closely connected with 
the trials and triumphs of Columbus than this very 
Alhambra. It was the Moorish war that absorbed the 
thoughts and drained the treasury of Isabella during all 
the long years in which the navigator had sought her favor. How could 
the queen be expected to give serious consideration to the plans of an obscure, 
visionary Genoese to plant the cross on distant, unknown shores when the 
crescent waved in triumph over her own Andalusia? How to feel much 
interest in wresting the Holy Sepulchre from the hated infidel when the 
fairest part of her own sunny land was given over to the worship of Allah? 




IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 23 

Upon the successful termination of this brilliant war, Columbus was 
summoned from La Rabida to appear before the queen. He arrived in time to 
see the departure of Boabdil and the gorgeous celebration by which the 
Spaniards took possession of the Alhambra. His own eyes, he says in his 
letters, watched the silver cross as it rose for the first time slowly and securely 
upon the ruddy tower. A silent looker-on, probably jeered at as the importu- 
nate applicant for court favors, as a harebrained Italian enthusiast, must have 
been this " Stranger of the Threadbare Cloak," this white-haired man of fifty- 
seven, wandering through the Court of the Lions, or past the vine-clad towers 
with the burden of an undiscovered world on his shoulders. 

Once more he was doomed to disappointment, as severe and galling as 
ever met a human soul. It was eighteen years since he first announced his 
scheme, long, anxious years of weary waiting that had — 

" Worn his eager spirit 
As the salt waves wear the stone." 

The coveted prize was within his grasp. Juan Perez, the learned prior of 
La Rabida, had faith in his plan. Quintanilla, the queen's treasurer, was his 
friend. But the advisers of the crafty Ferdinand would not accede to Colum- 
bus' terms. The Italian wool-carder's son to have Don prefixed to his name 



f! 



24 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 



and be made equal to the Grandees of Spain who had mustered armies to 
drive out the Moslem, and whose ancestors dated back to the Cid Campeador ! 

Such arrogant proposals were rejected 
with scorn. Turning his back upon the 
glowing Alhambra, and the snowy heights 
of the Sierra Nevadas, the disheartened 
applicant started across the Vega for the 
Frankish kingdom. He had reached the 
little Bridge of Pinos, about six miles from 
Granada, when he was recalled by a mes- 
senger from the repentant queen, who at 
this time is reported to have said, " I will 
pledge my jewels to raise the necessary 
funds." 

Few places can be found that have 
changed as little in the last four hundred 
years as Pinos. As I stood there on that 
very bridge last summer, amid the mediae- 
val scenes of Spanish country life, amid 
so much that has been the same for ages. 





COURT OF THE LIONS, ALHAMBRA. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 27 

it was easier to realize the past than the present. The very antiquity of the 
place would make us believe we were living at the time of the Conquest of 
Granada, and had witnessed the going forth of the melancholy Moors, and 
were merely dreaming, like the one who went before us, of the land of golden 
progress we had left across the seas. 

If Columbus had carried a Kamaret that eventful day when he approached 
Pinos, probably the same pictures would have developed on his films as I now 
have on mine. Dark-faced women carrying bottles of water, or donkeys with 
four huge water bottles strapped to them, going then, as now, over the Bridge 
of Pinos ! 

It was a mystery to them, that box I gazed into so earnestly. The men 
stopped their donkeys, the women put down their water bottles, the children 
gathered in crowds. O, ye honest Pinos friends, could you but see yourselves 
as I caught you that fair day, and the donkeys that serve you so faithfully ; the 
mill by your stream, the houses you live in, and the old historic bridgeway ; 
could you but know that I have brought you all back to America with me, 
you would think me a Moorish magician returned to the sunny Andalusia ! 

At the Alhambra I discovered a novel way to arrange a new roll of film. 
I usually replaced an exposed film at night by means of a pocket lantern, in- 
dispensable to a tourist-photographer. Or, if demands were greater than 



28 IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 

anticipated and a film gave out in the daytime, I sought out a gallery, where, I am 
glad to say, the photographers were uniformly polite. One of them evinced great 
curiosity concerning the roll of film, the like of which, he said, he had never seen 
before. I think he must have been extremely doubtful about its efficiency, 
also, for in this land of feeing, he refused to accept any remuneration for his 
dark-room. I write this as a memorial of him. May he live forever ! 

At the Alhambra, however, I had neither lighted my lantern, nor visited a 
studio. I merely covered myself with a large shawl, and in such a dark-room 
slipped out the old, and arranged a new spool with almost as little trouble as 
plates are changed. 

Is there a star propitious for travellers? If so, we must have set out 
under its benign influence, for by unknown good fortune, we reached Genoa 
on the Columbus fete day, the four hundredth anniversary of his departure 
from the port of Palos. It was as if the proud Sea City would make amends 
for the former neglect of her most famous son. The Dorias, the Brignoles, 
and all the haughty Dukes of Genoa faded into insignificance before the 
accumulated glory with which four centuries have crowned this humble lad of 
the Vico di Morcenti. In his honor palaces were festooned, bells were 
pealing, the whole city was garlanded. Every Genoese guide and driver, 
enthusiastic in his Columbus worship, was a veritable Mark Twain's " Ferguson." 




PIAZZA DE ACQUAVERDI, GENOA. 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 31 

The monument was our first halting place. At the top is a statue of 
the discoverer, leaning on an anchor, with an allegorical figure of America 
at his feet. The pedestal is adorned with ship's prows, surrounded by four 
large figures. Wisdom, Science, Geography, and Religion. On the lower part, 
the principal events of Columbus' life are cut in bas-relief. 

At the Municipal Palace are the autograph letters of Columbus and the 
famous Venetian mosaic. He looks like a man in the prime of life, with large, 
striking features, a strong face that must have carried great power when con- 
vinced of any truth. Opposite Columbus, hangs Marco Polo, the Venetian 
traveller, whose marvellous tales fired the mind of every imaginative, seaboard 
lad of the fifteenth century, and whose gold-washed, sapphire-studded Isle of 
the Inde, Columbus set out to reach. 

My Columbianism went even further than our Genoese driver's, for I in- 
sisted upon finding the house where Columbus lived and probably was born. 
"The Vico di Morcenti," said our shrewd cocchieir, "is too narrow to 
drive into, it has no palaces or gardens, and, altogether, I do not think you 
would care to go into such an out-of-the-way place." I assured him that those 
were the very places I wished especially to see, and were much more interest- 
ing than a succession of marble palaces. 

I would not exchange a visit to the Doria Palace for that journey into the 



32 



IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 



Vico di Morcenti, driving through alleys where I shuddered lest we meet 
another vehicle ; walking where even our own carriage could not gain admis- 
sion, past the little homes whose every window presents something for sale ; 
gathering after us, one by one, a company of curious people in fete-day 

dress; listening to the shrill cries of the small fruit 

''" and household-ware venders ; stopping, at last, 

S where there is a plate on the door stating in 

i Latin that " no house is more worthy of title, 

for here lived the parents of Christopher 

\ Columbus and here he passed his youthful 

' days." 

But the most attractive part of Genoa 
this fete-day was her seacoast. The old his- 
toric harbor that so many times has echoed 

• - to the war cry of "San Gorgio," the blue 

bay so exquisite that Genoa is said to stand continually on tiptoe to gaze 
upon it, was arrayed in a gorgeous holiday attire, crowded with ships and war- 
vessels with flaunting streamers and waving flags of all nations. The water 
itself sparkled like gems in honor of this Son of the Sea, as if to tell us that 
here he received the first inspiration for his future, here he gathered from 




IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COLUMBUS. 33 

incoming mariners some dim ideas of the earth's rotundity, here he dreamed 
of the marble palaces of Kublai Khan, and the pearly seas of Prester John. 

Thus, a wanderer from that fabled Atlantis, that golden Ophir, that far 
Cathay, that El Dorado of a New World, far greater now, O Columbus, than 
thy highest flights of imagination could have pictured, thus she has delighted 
to walk in thy footsteps, and recall the toils and labors, the glories and triumphs, 
of thee. Admiral of the Sea of Darkness, who first caught the dim, shadowy 
outline of this vast continent, — 

" The land of the free 
And the home of the brave." 

ANNIE J. CANNON. 



Note. — A complete description of the Kamaret may be obtained by writing The Blair 
Camera Company, 471 Tremont Street, Boston, 451 Broadway, New York, or 245 State 
Street, Chicago. This company also manufactures the celebrated " Hawkeye " and " Folding 
Hawkeye" Cameras, as well as the " Columbus," " The 400," and other popular patterns. 




Presented bv 



This ^ 

'ouvcnir ^.^-^awwvww. 

of the 

World's Fair 

The Blair Camera Company, 

Manufacturers of Blair's Standard Cameras and Films. 

"THE HAWKEYE," "THE KAMARET," 
"THE COLUHBUS," "THE 400," 

And General Photographic Apparatus and Supplies. 

9 9 

W AREROOMS: 

471 TREMONT STREET, BOSTON. 451 BROADWAY, NEW^ YORK. 

245 STATE STREET, CHICAGO. 

Catalogues on application 



RTA & CO., PRINTERS, 148 HIGH ST., BOSTON. 



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